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Originally Posted by Wollff
It seems to me, right now many people are beginning to accept piracy more as a fact that exists and always will, rather than as an evil that has to be rooted out no matter what (hello music industry).
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I really must disagree with you. We can accept the (regretable) fact that there will always be criminals without drawing the conclusion "so let's not bother punishing them". I regard it as rather like the trade in illegal drugs - the "end users" (the downloaders) are the "small fry"; there's no point in bothering going after them. The people to seek out and punish with all the rigour of the law are the dealers - the
uploaders; the criminals who make this stuff available on the internet in the first place. No uploaders = no downloaders.
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Those, who will have to deal with serious changes, as in the music industry, are the publishers. Their role will have to change, with less focus lying on the printing press and distribution of the word.
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Publishers these days
very rarely print their own books - it's all contracted out. The primary job of a publisher is to convert the ungrammatical, poorly-written manuscript that the author churns out into something commercially saleable. That is, I think, a point often overlooked in the popular "we don't need publishers" argument one sees so often today. WRONG. Very few authors are capable of writing saleable books without the aid of a good editor, although many more THINK that they are. That role is equally necessary for eBooks.